Cat Toys and Bonfires.

Last night I was starting our second fire of the season, (in our fireplace for those of you who know our history!) and I couldn’t find a lighter. Now, I’m not a smoker, never have been, but I do love candles and real wood fires. None of those push button pre-fabs for me, though I appreciate them in certain circumstances. It seems I buy packs of lighters, and sometime matches several times throughout the year. And then they are gone.

My part feral cat, Persephone, (queen of the underworld) loves to play fetch. Yes, she’s a cat who fetches. I buy these packs of a dozen little furry mice and throw them for her. She comes to me, I say, “Want to play mousie?” and gets all excited, crouching down and making that mrmrmrmr sound. I throw it over her head, she leaps for it, bats it around and then brings it back to me. She can do this for hours. We play until the mouse is gone.

I don’t know where these things go, but somewhere in my home is a military-size stash of lighters and fake mice. I look under furniture, behind cabinets, but I find nothing except old potato chips and hair ties and the occasional shoe. By now, there must be a collection of, now I don’t want to exaggerate, but at least, eight thousand, four hundred and fifty three toy mice and twice as many lighters, somewhere in the sub-flooring of my house.

Or…the mice and lighters are falling through a worm hole into an alternate universe, a place where fur cat toys frolic around small bonfires of lighter fluid and plastic. So I’ve learned to watch my step.

Fantasies aside, the mystery persists. Where do these things go? One day, perhaps, I will discover the secret door where the mice, the lighters, one half of all my socks, seventy-two pairs of sunglasses and most of my keys reside in peace and happiness.

In the meantime, I’m off to the dollar store.

Shari in a silly mood. 10-13-2012.